


Struggle in the Architecture

by samalander



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, American Football, Artist Steve Rogers, Graffiti, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Punk Steve Rogers, Quarterback Sam Wilson, Tutoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3904051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/pseuds/samalander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is a punk with a chip on his shoulder that's bigger than him. Sam Wilson is a honor student and a quarterback. When they get paired up for tutoring, something strange starts happening-- they become friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Struggle in the Architecture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerxe](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nerxe).



> _Now I see holes in Noah’s ark_   
>  _I see dirt in the reservoir_   
>  _I see struggle in the architecture_   
>  _I see sorrow in the family picture_   
>  _But I see you and it’s enough_   
>  _I’m a skeptic but I see love_   
>  _I see love, yeah_
> 
> Thanks to enigma731 for the beta, and to Rubynye and Sansets and Arch for the encouragement.

"You know this is fascist bullshit, right?"

The kid sitting across from Sam is tiny, but he's wrapped in attitude-- hair dyed a color Sam can only call "fuck you pink", paint under his nails and staining his clothes, and eyeliner so thick he thinks the kid probably used a sharpie instead of actual makeup. Sam has never seen him around school before, but he figures if they're assigned to work together, it must be because Mr. Sitwell has a reason.

"How's that?" Sam asks.

The kid-- Steve Rogers, his paper says-- rolls his eyes.

"They can't mandate my free time," he scowls. "They can't make me be here."

Sam glances around the room. Truth be told, it's not his favorite place to be either, but he gets NHS hours for doing after school tutoring, so he comes on Wednesdays before football practice and works with the people he gets handed.

"Then why are you here?" Sam asks, confused.

"Because apparently I'm not living up to my _potential_ ," Steve snaps. "Like it matters. Cs get degrees, right?"

"Sure," Sam says. "But you don't strike me as a C kind of guy."

"How do I strike you?" Steve purrs, leaning across the desk. Sam squirms, put off by the way he's leering.

"Like a pain in the ass, honestly."

The kid tosses his head back and laughs. "Oh," he says. "The quarterback knows a joke. Well done, Falcon!"

"Okay," Sam sighs, deciding to ignore the nickname. Steve isn't the first person who's thought it would be cute to call him by the name of the team he plays for, like this is High School Musical or some shit. "So, you're reading Huck Finn?"

"I have to write an essay," Steve says.

"Do you?"

"On the river as a symbol," Steve pushes the assignment sheet at Sam. "But it's like, why don't I just write about the novel as a bundle of words? Who the fuck _cares_. It's a racist piece of shit, anyway."

Sam skims the assignment sheet Steve handed him when he sat down. It is a boring topic, and it's not his favorite book, but he can't say that it's inappropriate to read Mark Twain in your junior year. "What do you want to write about?"

Steve pauses for a second, looking at Sam like he's just taken his pants off and started to dance a can can.

"I don't want to write anything," Steve says, slowly. "Dumbass."

Sam sighs. "Why are you here, then?"

Steve shrugs and crosses his arms, slouching in his seat. "Told you. I have to."

This is going nowhere, and Sam isn't going to get his service hours if he hits this kid, so instead he tilts his head back to study the ceiling tiles. 

"One thousand, six hundred, fifty seven," Steve says.

"What?"

"Holes. In the tile," Steve is smirking, his pink hair falling into his eyes. "I counted."

"Great," Sam sighs, and takes a second to study Steve. He's cute, Sam thinks, in the way of an angry puppy-- something that has no idea how small it is, how vulnerable, and will show its teeth. Sam's gaze lands on the paint under Steve's nails, again. "You like art?"

Steve scoffs quietly. "You care?"

This kid really needs a smack. "You don't wanna talk about Huck Finn, or the river or whatever. So. What do you wanna talk about? Since you have to be here?"

"I paint," Steve says, not looking at Sam. "I mean, I like painting. I'm not like, a painter."

"Yeah?" Sam smiles, trying his best to find some kind of connection with the kid. "What kind of painting?"

Steve's nose twitches, like Sam's said something offensive. "Do you know Basquiat?"

Sam shrugs. "No."

"Keith Haring?"

"Sorry."

"Lady Pink? Dona Nelson? Word to Mother?"

Sam feels the blush rise in his cheeks as Steve's voice gets more derisive with each name. He doesn't often feel dumb, but something about the way Steve is looking at him makes him feel like he hasn't done the reading, like his lack of knowledge is a sin.

"Fuck," he sighs. "What about fucking Banksy?"

"The graffiti guy?" Sam asks, wishing he could say more than that.

"Ugh," Steve sighs. "Bucky was right. You really are a dumb jock."

Sam opens his mouth it defend himself, or at least ask who the hell Bucky is, but Steve stands, brusquely, and grabs back his assignment sheet. "Fifteen minutes up," he says, his voice twisted. "See you around, Wilson."

Steve slings his backpack over his shoulder and strolls out of the room, pausing in the doorway to look back at Sam. Something goes unsaid, something Sam can't quite grasp, but he gets the distinct feeling that Steve wants to be chased, wants to be followed and asked after.

Fuck that.

* * *

Sam keeps busy-- he has his own work, when he's not tutoring. And he has workouts and football practice and a little sister to babysit on Thursdays. So he only sees Steve once in the following week, after school. He's walking towards the gate with a bigger boy who has dyed jet-black hair and a patch on the middle of the back of his jacket that depicts a lovingly drawn robot hand, giving the finger.

It fits.

* * *

"I got a C on my paper."

Sam looks up. He didn't even see Steve enter, but the kid is easy to overlook.

"Good job?"

"Apparently," Steve slumps, his backpack clanking as he drops it next to the desk. "I don't apply myself."

"But you did the paper," Sam shrugs. "So that's a win."

"I guess," Steve looks up at him. "You ever read All's Quiet on the Western Front?"

Sam shrugs. "Parts of it. It's-- kinda dry? I don't know. Not my favorite."

"Not your favorite," Steve says, and Sam has to admit, he's less hostile this week, so maybe he's getting through. "You know anything about the idea of enemies in the book?"

"Vaguely," Sam says, shaking his head. "It's been a while. Seems to me it's more-- don't they all bitch about their commander? What's his name?"

"Kantorek and Himmelstoss," Steve says, glancing down at his fingernails.

Sam raises an eyebrow. "And what about that?"

"I don't know," Steve snaps, the petulant lilt in his voice making him sound young. "What about it? I mean-- they should hate those guys."

"Why?"

"Cause it's war," Steve says. "Cause they're being ordered to do stupid things for a cause they don't believe in. I mean, like, if they believed in it, fine. But-- what could be worse, huh?" Steve's voice is intense, heated. "What could really be worse than being told to die for something fucking dumb?"

"I don't know," Sam says. "But it sounds like you got your paper."

Steve blinks. "I can't say that."

"You just did."

It's funny, Sam thinks. This kid has so much wrapped up in his persona, his ideal of _punk_ , but he's scared to speak truth to power. Unless that power is Sam.

"Write a draft," he says. "Bring it next week. We'll work on it."

* * *

The draft is good. Watching Steve blush a little when Sam says so is even better.

* * *

Steve turns in the mouthy-but-right paper three weeks later, when he and Sam have polished it and made sure it hits all the places it needs to. Steve asks him if he wants to get cheese fries to celebrate, but they're playing Sacred Heart this week, and Sam doesn't have the time. He asks for a rain check.

Steve pretends not to pout.

The game is okay. Sam scores once, and doesn't throw a single pick.

They still lose, because fuck the defense, but they play well, and Sam's pretty sure he sees a specific shade of fuck-you pink in the bleachers as the team heads into the locker room.

* * *

Steve's waiting when Sam slides into the tutoring room after the Sacred Heart game. 

"You're late," he says, his voice somehow accusatory and hurt at the same time.

"Yeah," Sam shrugs, taking his seat. "Mr. Coulson needed a hand with some copying."

He's expecting the eye roll, it's even a little cute. "Boyscout," Steve sneers.

"Eagle, actually," Sam shrugs. "I built a bridge."

Steve crosses his arms and sits back in his chair. "I can't believe you participate in that patriarchal heteronormative bullshit," he says, curling his lip.

Sam shrugs. "That heteronormative bullshit is helping me pay for college. Not all of us have daddy's money."

"Daddy," Steve says, his face somehow paler under his makeup. "You think that's what I'm about?"

"What homework are we working on?" Sam asks, before this gets any further out of control. Steve sets his jaw, his fists balled tightly. 

"My _daddy_ died in Iraq," he spits. "First Gulf War. Tell me again how lucky I am."

Sam scrubs at his eyes with the palm of his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't know, dude. That sucks."

"You're fucking right it sucks," Steve snaps, glaring at Sam. It's lucky that the kid only weighs 80 pounds, Sam thinks. That much righteous anger in a bigger guy would be downright dangerous.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "Don't be a prick to me, and I won't be one to you, okay? We can just talk about school, if you want."

"School," Steve says, like the word has personally wronged him.

They sit for a moment, staring, and Sam wonders what deity he pissed off to get saddled with this kid as his problem, who he made angry enough to have to wrangle a ball of annoyance and pink hair.

"I this Ms. Hill is a sadist," Steve says, finally. "I-- we're reading A Streetcar Named Desire, and I mean, if I wanted to read plays, I'd take drama."

Sam nods and waits while Steve rummages in his bag, pushing aside more of the clinking contents before holding the battered copy of the play in question out to Sam.

"So, what's the deal, right? Why can't this Stanley guy just be decent?" Steve asks.

"Why can't he just be decent," Sam agrees. "Isn't that the question."

* * *

The guys always make fun of Sam when he won't go get dinner with them on Thursday after practice, but he usually shrugs and tells them he has a hot date.

He's holding her hand when they walk into food court at the mall, her hair pulled into two little poufs. Like Mickey Mouse ears, he thinks, but he'd never say it, lest she think he was making fun of her. He's never make fun of his date's hair.

"What do you wanna get, Roob?" he asks, looking around the food court.

His date grins at him, and he has to smile at the fact that her front tooth is missing. She's pretty cute, as annoying little sisters go, and he thinks he's probably lucky in that way.

Ruby leads him to the Chinese place, which she knows is his favorite of the food court offerings, so he lets her sit on his shoulders while they order and he tells her to pick the table. She chooses one of the high-backed booths that you can't see into when you pass, so it's not until Sam is carrying their food over that he catches sight of a familiar shade of pink.

He smiles at Steve, who looks guilty and confused at seeing Sam in a place that isn't school related.

Ruby jabbers on about her day-- she's still figuring out first grade, and has a whole mess of things to tell Sam about her adventures in counting and sandboxes. He almost doesn't notice when Steve appears at his elbow, sliding into the booth next to him.

"Hi?" Sam says, looking over at the kid he tutors.

"Hi," Steve says. "Is this your sister?"

"No," Ruby says. "He's my _brother_."

Steve grins at her, the first really happy thing Sam thinks he’s ever seen the little punk do.

"Listen," Sam says. "I'm--"

"Babysitting, yeah, I see," Steve says. "But, hey. Tomorrow is Friday. And you don't have a game. So, you know. Do you like stuff?"

"Stuff?" Sam asks, dimly aware that he's talking to a boy with pink hair in front of his baby sister, and everything that happens in front of Ruby gets back to their mother. Though he's not sure why that matters, exactly.

"Yeah--" Steve shakes his head. "Like, art and stuff. You like art, right?"

Sam shrugs. "I don't think we like the same art, but sure. Why?"

"Just--" the look on Steve's face can only be coded as "vexed" and Sam is really, really confused right now. "Are you free? Tomorrow?"

Ruby squirms in her seat. She's bored. And after bored comes destructive. Sam nods. "Text me," he says, holding his hand out for Steve's phone. 

Steve blushes bright red as he pulls an ancient Nokia brick out of his pocket and hands it to Sam. The blush looks good on him, Sam decides. He looks good with some color in his cheeks. Sam punches his number in quickly and hands the phone back before turning to Ruby, who is playing with her lo mein.

"Thanks," Steve says. Sam smiles at him, and just as quickly as he appears, the pink-haired ball of mystery disappears back to his black haired friend.

Sam makes his sister eat six more bites and then takes her to the Lego store, and tries not to think about the color of Steve's eyes behind the black eyeliner.

* * *

He gives up on getting the text around 9, but Sam doesn't make other plans. He's not entirely sure why he's decided to sit around and wait, but he's got homework to do, and it's not like one Friday night in will kill him.

His phone buzzes at 10:36. Not that he's watching the clock.

 _come outside_ it says. The number is a local one, and even if he's never seen it before, Sam's pretty sure he's held the phone that sent it.

The phone buzzes again. _wear something dark_.

* * *

Whatever Sam was expecting-- a gallery, maybe, or a museum-- it wasn't this.

It wasn't sneaking out of his house and trekking through a field so he could crawl into a weird tunnel behind a fence at 11:13pm with a tiny ball of rage and his omnipresent clinking backpack.

And yet.

"This is where the trains sleep," Steve whispers, clicking his flashlight on.

"What do trains have to do with art?" Sam whispers back.

Steve doesn't answer, just leads the way through the tunnels, pausing every so often as if he's listening to something Sam can't hear. Maybe something that isn't there.

"Where the trains sleep" turns out to be an understatement. Sam never thought before about where the subway trains went when they were out of service, but apparently Steve has, because that's where he takes them-- a huge, cavernous room underground, full of dull grain trains that do, indeed, look like sleeping monsters.

Steve drops his bag and unzips it, revealing, for the first time, the cause of the clinking.

Spray cans. His bag is full of spray cans.

The truth clicks in after a second, and Sam almost has wants to laugh. "You brought me here to tag trains?" he whispers, afraid of something he can't quite put his finger on.

"Yup," Steve says, picking up a can and shaking it. "Feel proud."

Sam steps back. He's not sure what he thinks of this, what he's meant to do. The only time he's even held a can of spray paint was when he painted his old bike purple so Ruby would ride it, and that turned out lumpy and weird. So he watches, instead, as Steve works.

His arms are skinny, but he moves the can like it's a dance, like he's in some kind of performance. A white base coat, red lines, and blue inside.

"Cap?" Sam asks, when Steve steps back. "You-- I've seen that before."

Steve shrugs. "The bridge?"

"Yeah," Sam nods. "And-- and the wall of that building on Fowler Ave. The one they knocked down."

Steve nods. "I only tag public property," he says. "And things that are gonna get knocked down."

"Why?" Sam studies his face in the gloomy cathedral.

"Cause it's all-- none of it stays," Steve says, softly. "Even The Last Supper melted. So who cares?"

Sam picks up a can, shaking it once. "Show me," he says.

Steve hesitates, but steps in and puts his hand over Sam's, guiding him in moving the can to spell out his name.

"That," Sam grins at Steve. "That look like shit."

"First tag always does," Steve laughs, capping the can again and tossing it in his bag. "C'mon. You owe me cheese fries."

* * *

"I'm just saying--"

Sam is laughing, and Steve is laughing, and it feels oddly good to laugh together in the tutoring room.

"You're saying," Steve grins, his blue eyes flashing fire. "That you think Banksy is a good artist."

"No," Sam holds up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm saying, I'm a scholar and not an artist. I just like what he does."

"He uses stencils, you know," Steve rolls his eyes, pulling _Streetcar_ out of his bag and dropping it on the desk. "You're worse than Bucky. Bucky--" He grins and leans in conspiratorially. "Bucky once tried to make the case for Thomas Kinkade."

The disgust in Steve's voice is all Sam needs to start laughing again. He's so angry, his brow furrowed and his sneer pronounced. "I--" Sam giggles. "Have no clue who that is."

"Hopeless." Steve rolls his eyes. "Utterly hopeless."

* * *

The game is a slog. Sam feels like he's been playing for a week by the time halftime starts, and it's not even the defense's fault. They're doing good, he thinks. He's been on the field too long, and he's tired. It's pissing rain, and he feels like he's been through a blender, slipping and sliding in the mud.

Coach Fury gives him a thump on the shoulders three or four hours later, when the clock is winding down and they're up by ten. 

"Good game, Wilson," Fury says, the closest he ever comes to praise. "Take a knee."

Sam's not entirely sure he could keep playing if he wanted to, but Riley snaps the ball and Sam does as he's told, kneeling in the mud and watching the last few seconds run out. It's over. The infinite game is over, and they survived.

They _won._

Someone--Thor, maybe, or Barton-- drags Sam to his feet, and the next thing he knows there are people all around them, jumping and cheering and celebrating in the mudpit that used to be their field. His vision feels blurry, his legs heavy. It's been forever since Sam has been this wiped out after a game. His everything hurts.

Which is probably why he doesn't react when he sees someone running at him. 

The tiny person barrels into Sam's side, and Sam catches them around the waist instinctively. He lifts them, twirling them because it's the only way his momentum can go. His helmet falls to the ground, forgotten, and Sam looks into sharp blue eyes under a shock of pink hair.

"Good game," Steve says.

"Thanks," Sam replies, not moving. He knows he should put Steve down, should stop himself, but he doesn't, instead leaning forward to press their lips together.

Steve freezes for a second, going rigid in Sam's arms, but then he seems to melt, his hands finding Sam's jaw and hauling him closer, kissing him soundly.

"Good kiss," Steve laughs, when Sam pulls back, breathless.

Sam doesn't register the rain, the spectators, the ache in his limbs. "For fuck's sake, Steve," he laughs "Shut up." 

They kiss again. Victory is sweet, Sam thinks, but somehow, this? This is sweeter.


End file.
